Muller Holds Off Huffâ€™s Late Charge To Win Wet First Race

Yvan Muller claimed his third straight win in the World Touring Car Championship after resisting a late charge from teammate Rob Huff in Race 1 at a wet Oschersleben in Germany.

Muller led away from pole position at the rolling start, which was twice waved by as cars didn't line up through their grid boxes. Meanwhile Huff, Tom Coronel and Gabriele Tarquini all moved ahead of front-row starter Robert Dahlgren on the run to Turn 1.

Huff remained close to Muller during the opening stages as the Chevrolet pair eased away from their rivals. However, the Brit ran wide on lap 4, rejoining just ahead of Tarquini. Huff closed down on Muller in the remaining laps, but couldn't find a way through on the last lap.

Tarquini came home in a quiet third to complete the podium, ahead of Dahlgren who recovered to fourth after dropping as low as eighth on the opening lap after contact with Alain Menu. The Swiss driver finished in fifth, ahead of Yokohama Trophy winner Stefano D'Aste. Michel Nykjaer dropped back to seventh after running as high as fourth early on.

His Sunred teammates Pepe Oriola and Aleksei Dudukalo were eighth and ninth, the latter surviving late contact with Franz Engstler that sent the German driver spinning. Coronel finished in tenth after slipping down the field throughout the race.

Race 1 results – 14 laps:

Pos

Driver

Team

Car

Time/Gap

1

Yvan Muller

Chevrolet

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

25:54.624

2

Robert Huff

Chevrolet

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

0.289

3

Gabriele Tarquini

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

13.810

4

Robert Dahlgren

Polestar

Volvo C30 Drive

14.665

5

Alain Menu

Chevrolet

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

18.578

6

Stefano D’Aste

Wiechers

BMW 320 TC

25.058

7

Michel Nykjaer

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

33.795

8

Pepe Oriola

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

34.362

9

Alexey Dudukalo

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

43.187

10

Tom Coronel

ROAL

BMW 320 TC

45.665

11

Mehdi Bennani

Proteam

BMW 320 TC

46.105

12

Javier Villa Garcia

Proteam

BMW 320 TC

46.328

13

Kristian Poulsen

Engstler

BMW 320 TC

46.627

14

Darryl O’Young

Bamboo

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

46.919

15

Norbert Michelisz

Zengo

BMW 320 TC

47.560

16

Franz Engstler

Engstler

BMW 320 TC

55.237

17

Yukinori Taniguchi

Bamboo

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

1:29.885

18

Ibrahim Okyay

Borusan

BMW 320si

1:52.554

19

Fabio Fabiani

Proteam

BMW 320si

+1 lap

Ret

Tiago Monteiro

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

7 laps

Ret

Fredy Barth

Sunred

Sunred SR Leon 1.6T

5 laps

Muller Holds Off Huffâ€™s Late Charge To Win Wet First Race was last modified: August 10th, 2011